Stirring

Words of creative intent fall away

when my heart is squeezed tightly

settling quietly 

in the recesses of my mind

until a new day dawns

awakening with ease in my heart.

Rest, laughter and music

return resiliency to my soul

stirring words of creative intent 

once more.

“Nothing can wear you out like caring about people.”

~ S.E.Hinton, That Was Then, This is Now

An Old Story of Nurses

Let me tell you

a story

of the resiliency of nurses:

We care for the sick even

when the sick is a colleague 

with no other to fill their shift.

Young or old we jump into the fray

in all the many years of nurses ~

for the young, a trial by the fire of need.

It’s a story as old as nursing ~

we care for each other while

we care for sick patients all the same.

“Fortitude is the guard and support of the other virtues.”

~ John Locke

Tell Me

There is ever only a glimmer.

A shadowy mirage.

Reaching for it ~

useless.

Visions must be clear.

Detailed or I cannot chase them.

A shadowy wavering mirage

tells me nothing

so I ask the resiliency of mind and heart

to tell me of the vision in the mist.

“The mountain veiled in mist is not a hill; 

an oak tree in the rain is not a weeping willow.”

~ Khalil Gibran

Sidelined

Grief

takes you by the throat.

Slams you against an invisible wall.

You can hardly breathe.

Numbness takes over.

Dropped back into life ~

there is no desire to live.

Until

past joys start chipping away

at your frozen heart,

new joys sidle in from behind

to chip away a bit more.

A heart, once resilient and full of life,

frozen and numb with grief,

regains a happy belief in living

  ~ resilient to life once more.

“The emotion that can break your heart 

is sometimes the very one that heals it…”

~ Nicholas Sparks, At First Sight

Echo Chambers

Lessons hover silently echoing 

from grandma’s kitchen

 from classrooms K through 12

  from listening to radios waves

   eavesdropping behind a door.

Resiliency grew strong 

 with no road map 

  but shadows of fading echoes

   whispered through time

    remodeled within our hearts and minds.

“When the oak is felled the whole forest echoes with its fall but a hundred acorns are sown in silence by an unnoticed breeze." 

~ Thomas Carlyle

Touching

To touch the future

is impossible

walking in heavy fog

feeling the dampness

my skin grows cold and wet

turning me towards the warmth of home.

To touch today

is always possible

where there is no fog,

only dusty memories

falling gently on precious items

keeping the warmth of home within.

To touch the past 

is impossible

the heavy fog of hovering memories

~ feeling the distance ~

my heart reaches out, stretches out

turning me towards the warmth of home.

To touch today

is always possible

clearing away dust and fog with a resilient spirit

spices to futures hopes and dreams

using many flavoured lessons from the past

 ~ home can be created that is safe and warm. 

“And he that strives to touch the stars, 

Oft stumbles at a straw.”

~ Edmund Spenser

Beckoning

A new journey beckons.

Walking the cliffs of life

peering over the jagged edges

soil crumbling

falling into an abyss

echoes of tiny rocks against

waves crashing up on unseen seas...........

OMG! How dreadful!

Let me try that again…..

A new journey beckons,

after walking the deep valleys 

 and scaling dizzying cliffs of life,

Events become important memories but 

in the midst are the energy and resiliency 

 of riding life’s white water rapids,

  patience while becalmed in glittering sunshine,

   tenacity inside gripping fear in that road

    persistence along roads long and colourless

A new journey beckons ~

 a challenge to walk into today and tomorrow

to find and experience the depth

 of many new travels

  in my kitchen, in books or on the road.

Standing at the edge of a cliff.

gazing out over misty land, lakes and rivers ahead

making certain to step back from the edge

 and to smile into the new journey that beckons.

“….there ain’t no journey what don’t change you some.”

~ David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas